Georgia Angry Over Russian Installation Of Fence Along South Ossetian Territory

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TBILISI -- Georgia's foreign minister has expressed concern over the installation by Russian troops of barbed-wire fencing along the administrative boundary of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia.

The fences were also reportedly installed a few hundred meters beyond that boundary, deeper inside Georgian territory.

Residents in the village of Ditsi bordering South Ossetia complain that they will not be able to use the land beyond the newly installed fences as pasture any more.

Talking to journalists on May 27, Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze said Tbilisi would send an official note to Russia on the matter.

Panjikidze added that she would raise the issue during her meetings with foreign diplomats this week and during talks in Geneva next month on Georgia's breakaway regions.

Moscow recognized the independence of Georgia's separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008, soon after the two fought a brief war over those regions.